Sometimes a show and its surroundings will go together almost magically
well. Ian Talbot of the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park has long
known this, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been the traditional
centrepiece of the venue’s summer season for several decades. Now
he’s found another such show, in the repertoire’s slot reserved for a musical.
To watch Camelot there on a summer evening is something special.

Lerner and Loewe’s 1960 show is one of the not-quite-greats from the
latter end of the Golden Age of Musicals. It has a lot going against
it. Its central tale is a dark one (although that didn’t hurt Carousel
or West Side Story). Its hero, King Arthur, is cuckolded by
his best friend Lancelot. And they can only fit in a happy ending
by blatantly pulling the Arthurian story up short before the final battle.

Talbot’s production, similarly, is solid without being spectacular.
Daniel Flynn as Arthur, Lauren Ward as Guenevere and Matt Rawle as a French-accented
Lancelot act and sing well, but without electricity between them.
The sole extraordinary performance is in the role of King Pellinore, a
buffoonish but good-hearted visiting knight. He’s played delightfully by
actor and comedian Russ Abbot.

On his first entrance, Abbot seems to be going into an extended comedy
routine. He even dares a joke about the weather: on taking off his helmet
he notes, “Hello, it’s stopped raining.” But he knows better than
to derail the proceedings. Here, it’s allowed; but once Pellinore joins
the story, he knuckles down to the drama as written. I’m coming to
believe that Abbot is way underrated as a comic character-actor.

Both the material and the production are well crafted and efficient,
but not enough to make you catch your breath. However, put them in
a sylvan setting like this, as evening turns to twilight and then to night,
with (fortunately) hardly a cloud in the deepening blue of the sky, and
the combination can turn even a cynical old reviewer poetical. It’s
a stereotype of outdoor summer theatre, but stereotypes can be joyful.